262 
ON THE MURIATE OF SODA. 
When used a little below saturation, it will preserve animal 
substances an indefinite period, and at all temperatures and 
states of the atmosphere. 
When animal substances have been properly macerated and 
put into this solution, that solution will retain its brightness as 
long as it is excluded from the atmosphere, and will rarely deposit 
so much precipitate as is done by spirit of wine. 
It may be used upon a large scale in vessels less accurately 
closed ; upon specimens of any bulk for occasional inspection, 
and for which the costliness and volatility of spirit almost wholly 
unfits it. 
It may be substituted for spirit almost universally ; and there 
are parts which it preserves in the natural condition which spirit 
contracts. 
The salt used in most of the preparations was that of Philipps 
Loudon, Esq. ; but some trials recently made justify the assertion 
that common salt will avail, if the process is conducted in the 
manner hereafter described. 
Mr. Cooke says, that the chief difficulty which presented itself 
in the manipulations consisted in closing the bottles and the adop- 
tion of a body which should be efficient and not liable to chemi- 
cal action with the muriate. At length glass, with a medium of 
resin, occurred to me, and proves easy of application, neat, and 
effectual. 
The process is exceedingly simple : it consists in putting animal 
substances — deprived of their blood by maceration in water — 
into a saturated solution of muriate of soda, and nearly the whole 
is comprehended ; yet, as the transparency of the fluid and the 
permanency of the preservation depend upon some trivial parts 
of the management, it will be necessary to attend to the following 
particulars. 
Keep a saturated solution of muriate of soda in good spring 
water, and in every gallon of water dissolve 3 lbs. of salt. 
The specimens intended for preservation should be macerated in 
water, and frequently changed, in order to deprive them of the co- 
louring part of the blood. This usually occupies three or four days, 
or more if the substances are large. Then place them in a solution 
of salt, kept in a common receptacle, in order to saturate them 
with the salt ; and, as the water suspended in the animal structure 
would reduce the strength of the solution, this is counteracted by 
placing in it a linen bag filled with the muriate. It is kept in a 
linen bag in order to prevent the foreign matters of the salt from 
soiling the preparations. At the expiration of a few days they 
may be transferred from this vessel into that which is to contain 
them permanently. 
